Since Alexisonfire first broke out in 2002, it has been really interesting to watch singer/guitarist Dallas Green develop as a musician. Of course, Alexis blew up on the strength of raw adrenaline and aggressive tendencies so, when Dallas' side project at its debut album, Sometimes, came along in 2005, City and Colour got a lot of attention because the album was the perfect antithesis of Alexis' convention. When the project really started to get a head of steam behind it...
Kevin Graham Ogilvie AKA Nivek Ogre has been putting music out since the early 1980s, best-known as one of the two founding members of industrial band Skinny Puppy. Decades after the launch of that band, Ogre is still neck-deep in the industrial scene touring with Skinny Puppy and, since Y2K, Ogre has been making music on the side on his own with ohGr; a decidedly lighter endeavor, yet still rooted in the Industrial scene which first got him noticed. unDeveloped...
LA band Dawes keep good company. Their 2009 debut, North Hills, was born out of informal jam sessions with Bright Eyes' Conor Oberst, the Heartbreakers' Benmont Tench, The Black Crowes' Chris Robinson and Wilco's multi-instrumentalist Pat Sansone. More recently, Robbie Robertson selected them to be the backing band for his public appearances in support of his new record, How To Become Clairvoyant, on which singer/guitarist Taylor Goldsmith also guests. Their sophomore effort, Nothing Is Wrong, again features Tench and sees...
Multi-platinum, Grammy Award-winning rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers will release their upcoming 10th studio album, I’m With You, on Warner Bros. Records on August 30, 2011. Recorded at East West In Los Angeles and Shangri-la in Malibu, CA, I’m With You was produced by Rick Rubin, who has produced the band’s previous five albums, 2006’s Stadium Arcadium, 2002’s By The Way, 1999’s Californication, 1995’s One Hot Minute, and 1991’s Blood Sugar Sex Magik. The album was mixed by Andrew...
It might be regarded as an inconvenient truth but, looking at the state of modern rock, it's hard not to notice that songwriting and the themes employed have grown a little stale. Since Nirvana broke into the mainstream twenty years ago, it has become common to hear bands stick safely within pop forms (verse-chorus-verse indeed) but tease listeners by daringly adding a few offbeat or underground proclivities to twist their sound and make it attractive to proudly counterculture-identified types. This...
As fashionably jaded as some music fans and critics are prone to being in the new millennium, some things are undeniable. Some sounds just have that THING which you'll feel from the first beat of the first song; it'll hit you and move you. That sound can compel you to do something – either make you swing with it, make you dance, just bob your head in appreciation or want to get intimate with the one you love – or...
After having a sour taste left in my mouth by the remastered reissue of Ozzy Osbourne's stellar solo debut, Blizzard Of Ozz, it was with trepidation that I put the remastered edition of Diary Of A Madman into my Discman to review it. I'd had my world rocked by the reissue of Ozz alright, but not in all the right ways; there were many remixed/remastered successes on that album, but the few missteps made were frustrating enough that they threatened...
Every two years when Black Lips re-surface, each new recording is slightly more polished than the last and each manages to sound as though it cost nothing make. Sometimes it costs a lot to sound cheap and, with in-demand producer Mark Ronson at the helm of their new opus, the trashy garage sound synonymous with the Lips was in question. However the result is perfect with Ronson’s diverse musical taste fueling the integrity of their signature sound. Arabia Mountain’s subject...
'Ey youse,Awright, I'm runnin' late today (sue me) so I'll keep this short so ya can make wit' the thievin'. Yer gonna thank me though – ya filthy junkies youse – cause I got some good, good shit this week! Check it out – I scored the new Raekwan tune! Pilfered it right out from unda his nose! Somebody hadda do it – he's been suckin' for a coupla years – but this new tune's solid man, total double live...
On July 12th, 2011 Chicago's The Cool Kids will release their long-awaited full-length album, When Fish Ride Bicycles on Green Label Sound. When Fish Ride Bicycles features 11 brand new songs and finds Mikey Rocks and Chuck Inglish working with the likes of Ghostface Killah of the Wu Tang Clan, Bun B, Mayer Hawthorne, Asher Roth, Travis Barker and more. Recording began with Pharrell Williams at Miami's South Beach Studios in December 2010 resulting in Williams' production of album closer...